Heartless
by CMPerry
Summary: I love the little moments we get between Sahira and Hanssen, but I got bored of waiting for more so I wrote my own! Sahira/Hanssen   Rated T for violence
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"God damn it!" Sahira half-shouted, slamming her retractors down on to the tray beside her. Her patient lay in front of her on the operating table, covered in blood which was dripping off the table and on to the floor.

She had been trying for twenty five minutes to resuscitate the woman in front of her. She was only forty-two. She was too young to have died. Sahira had tried everything to get her heart beating again, but after a violent car crash, the woman, Janet, had so much glass embedded around her heart that she was lucky to have even survived the ambulance journey to the hospital.

Ten minutes later, Sahira peeled off her gloves, washed her hands and headed for the door. Her mind was buzzing. She was already thinking about how she was going to tell her family the bad news. This woman had two teenage children and they were about to be told they no longer had a mother. The thought made Sahira feel a little sick. She couldn't help imagining something terrible happening to her and her own sons being left motherless. Trying to control her own emotions, she braced herself for the impending tragic meeting between herself and her patient's family.

As she left the theatre on her way to the relatives' room, she heard the familiar click of Hanssen's shoes coming up behind her.

"I was watching your operation," he said simply. He didn't have to say any more, Sahira already knew he was going to make some kind of comment about the outcome of the operation.

"Before you say anything, Henrik, just... don't," she said. The long operation had left her upset and exasperated and not in the mood for any of Hanssen's matter-of-fact speeches.

Ignoring her request, Hanssen continued,

"I think it would be prudent for you to stop engaging with the patients on such an emotional level."

Despite trying her best to hide it, Hanssen had obviously noticed her eyes fill with tears of frustration and pity when she realised she couldn't save her patient.

"In cardiothoracics," he continued, "you can hardly afford to get emotionally attached to every patient you encounter."

"Well thanks for the advice," Sahira snapped. "Forgive me for showing compassion, but I was under the impression that it was an important part of being a good doctor."

Hanssen didn't say anything, but just looked down at her with one eyebrow slightly raised.

It had been a long time since she had been intimidated by Hanssen's towering figure and sceptical expressions. Unlike the rest of the hospital, she had no problems voicing her opinions to his face. Taking advantage of his rare silence, she continued on her irate rant.

"I would have thought in a hospital, people would want to know that their doctor cares about them, but obviously I was mistaken. God forbid I should actually give a damn about anyone in this hospital!" she snarled, struggling to keep herself from shouting.

"Really, Miss Shah," he said coolly, "you are beginning to make a scene."

Sure enough, her furious tone had started to attract some inquisitive looks from nearby staff, but a few curious glances weren't enough to stop her.

"I'm making a scene because I actually care about my patients. I would much rather be taking my patient up to Darwin now, but I'm not. She's going to the morgue and I need to explain to her husband and children that they have just lost the most important woman in their lives. I will get as attached to my patients as I please. As much as you might disagree, it doesn't make me a worse doctor. I would rather care a little too much about my patients than end up like _you_."

And with that, she turned on her heel and headed back to the ward. She could feel Hanssen's eyes burning in to her as he watched her walk away. She was so infuriated by him and his heartless attitude. He used to care about things, he used to care about his patients, but now all he did was sit in his office and do calculations and budgets.

Heading for the relatives' room, she tried to put Hanssen out of her mind. She knocked on the door and opened it. Simultaneously, three pairs of wide eyes looked up at her.

"Mr Peters, Harry, Rachel," she said, addressing her patient's husband and two children. She hesitated for a moment before continuing but the family had already realised that it wasn't good news.

"I'm so sorry," she said simply. "We did our best to save Janet, but her injuries from the crash were just too extensive."

The daughter, Rachel, was the first to start crying, while her brother tried to stop himself from doing the same.

"I really am terribly sorry," Sahira said, struggling to keep her own voice steady. "If you have any questions about anything..?"

The teenage boy just shook his head and put his arms around his younger sister.

Mr Peters hadn't reacted at all from the moment Sahira had walked through the door. She wasn't surprised though; most people reacted similarly, caught in a state of stunned silence.

"I'll leave you guys alone for a while, but I'll be just outside if you want to speak to me."

Mr Peters still said nothing, but rose to his feet and stood at the window, gazing out on to the car park, his hands in his pockets.

Sahira turned and left the relatives' room, feeling, if possible, even worse than she had done when she lost her patient on the operating table.

She walked over to the nurses' station and slumped down on to an empty seat with a shaky sigh. She would wait there for a short while in case Mr Peters or his children wanted to speak with her.

As she sat there, she had to fight hard not to let images cross her mind of something awful happening to her. A car crash, a house fire, an illness... If working in a hospital had taught her one thing, it was how incredibly fragile people are. Her life could be ended in a heartbeat and the thought of leaving her little boys was almost too much to bear.

For the second time that day, she was dragged out of her dark thoughts by the sound of Hanssen's shiny black shoes clicking down the corridor behind her. She knew she wasn't going to get away unscathed for shouting at him earlier but a reprimanding from Hanssen didn't scare her like it used to.

To her surprise, he strode right past her with no more than a scornful sideways glance in her general direction. This didn't do much for her mood. She knew she was in trouble when Hanssen was too angry to speak to her. It wasn't the threat of a scolding from Hanssen that worried her, it was the guilt she felt about effectively calling him heartless. As much as he could be cold sometimes, she knew she had overstepped the line.

"You alright?" came a familiar voice from beside her.

She swung round in her wheelie chair to see Greg Douglas looking at her sympathetically.

"Tough day?" he asked.

"That's an understatement," Sahira muttered.

"I heard you lost your patient, I'm sorry to hear it." She found his laid-back Irish brogue oddly comforting. His had been the first friendly face she'd seen today.

"Here," he said, holding out a cup of coffee.

"Thanks," she said. Taking the cup from him, she noticed that her hands were still shaking from the strain of the day.

"Cheer up," Greg said, with a handsome smile. "Things can only go up from here."

"You would think so," Sahira agreed. She didn't know if Greg was right or not, but at that moment all she wanted to do was leave the hospital behind her for the day and get home to her sons.

Hanssen sat in his office with an enormous pile of papers before him. He had been trying for weeks to think of new ways to make cuts without losing his staff, but he was realising now that he was going to have to be brutal. He was going to have to lose members of staff whether he liked it or not.

Checking his watch, he noticed it was eight o'clock at night. He let out an exasperated sigh, realising that he spent the better part of his life in this office.

He felt a deep sense of regret within him, for many different reasons. For one, he had argued with Sahira just half an hour before. He greatly admired her fiery personality and passion, but that meant their personalities often clashed. He also felt regret for the loss of the best part of his career. It was a rare sight for him now to see the inside of an operating theatre. Now he felt more of an administrator than a surgeon. He had thought he had left the mounds of paperwork behind in his foundation years as a junior doctor twenty five years ago.

There was a nagging feeling at the back of mind telling him to get on with his budget reports but he was finding it incredibly difficult when his spat with Sahira kept taking over his thoughts. Trying his best to get her out of his mind, he turned to a long memo and started to read it.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sahira arrived in work the next day feeling considerably more optimistic. It was remarkable what a night's sleep could do.

As much as she was still crushed at the loss of her patient the day before, she was managing to keep a positive outlook on the day ahead.

As she strode in to Darwin in her best high heels, Greg shouted,

"Looking good, Sahira," with a mischievous smile.

"Oh Mr Douglas, really," she said in mock indignation, but couldn't help returning the smile.

Then another voice joined the conversation.

"As much as I'm sure the ward would love to hear your riveting chit-chat, perhaps you should be getting on with your jobs instead of loitering around my hospital."

Sahira and Greg both fell silent and looked round to see the looming figure of Hanssen standing behind them.

Sahira still felt the twisting pain of guilt in her stomach when she looked at him. He hadn't really deserved the insults she threw at him yesterday.

"Yes Mr Hanssen," Greg said, turning back to a patient's chart he had in his hands, clearly trying to stifle a childish laugh at being told off by his superior.

Hanssen didn't look at either of them, but kept his eyes on a clipboard in his hands and then proceeded to busy himself with a pile of patient notes.

Sahira couldn't bring herself to say anything. She wanted to apologise for suggesting he was heartless, but her pride wouldn't let her. She hadn't realised until she looked Hanssen in the eye that she was still seething about him criticising the way she does her job.

She settled for a courteous nod and walked past Hanssen to the staff room to put away her bags.

A few hours later, Sahira had finished all her most pressing tasks and found time to grab herself a coffee. Taking up her usual spot behind the nurses' station on Darwin, she settled down for a well deserved break. She was a little disappointed that there wasn't anyone around to talk to like Greg or one of the nurses. They were all helping with tasks around the ward and Sahira was feeling a little lonely.

As she swung absent-mindedly from side to side on her chair, she caught a glimpse of the double doors that marked the visitors' entrance to Darwin. Standing in front of the doors was Mr Peters, her patient's now widowed husband from the day before. He still had the same blank expression on his face that he had been wearing yesterday.

"Mr Peters," Sahira said, standing up. "Is there something I can help you with? I know we didn't get much of a chance to talk yesterday."

He walked up to her and she suddenly felt a little intimidated. She hadn't noticed before, but he must have been at least six inches taller than her and twice her width. He was also standing a little closer to her than she would have liked.

Taking a small step back, she asked,

"Is there something you wanted to talk about?"

"You told me she was going to be fine," he growled.

"I'm sorry?" Sahira said.

"Before the operation, you told me my wife would be fine. That's what you said."

"Mr Peters," she said, "I am so sorry for your loss, but I can assure you I said absolutely nothing of the kind. I never guarantee my patients anything, or their families. Every procedure carries risks, and in your wife's case, I'm afraid the odds were stacked against her. I told you that we would do everything we could."

"No," he snarled. "You said she would live."

"Mr Peters, please, you must be confused. I told you that your wife was very ill, but we would try our best."

Mr Peters closed the gap between them again and towered over her. Starting to feel genuinely scared now, Sahira looked around her for some support from other staff but most of them were behind curtains or busy with patients and hadn't noticed anything was going on.

"You killed my wife," he said.

"No, I didn't. The injuries she sustained in the car crash were so extensive, she couldn't be saved."

"You're a doctor," he said, his voice rising. "You are supposed to save people. You killed her! YOU KILLED MY WIFE!" By the end of his sentence he was positively screaming in her face. She was now completely terrified. She could feel her heart pounding so hard in her chest she felt like it was pressing on her windpipe.

Hearing the commotion, the other staff on the ward came to see what was going on.

Sahira turned her head to look at one of the nurses who was now standing nearby.

"Get security," she said quietly. The second she said it, she knew it had been a mistake.

Mr Peters let out a furious scream and threw himself at Sahira. In seconds she felt a thick arm around her neck and something cold and hard pressed against her temple. She didn't need the terrified screams of the nurses to tell her that she was now standing in the middle of Darwin with a gun to her head.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Unwilling to make a start on the enormous pile of work in front of him, Hanssen leaned back on his chair and turned to face out the window in the hope of some quiet relaxation time, but no such luck. Just seconds later, the sharp screech of his pager sliced through the silence. Picking it up, he was concerned to see "999 Darwin" before him. It wasn't very often that he was sent that message, and it never boded well. The last time he had been summoned like this to an emergency on Darwin had been when a train had de-railed near Holby train station. Darwin had collapsing under the influx of patients overflowing from the E.D. and it was all hands on deck.

Picking up his plain black stethoscope, he stood. Hastily re-doing his top shirt button and adjusting his tie, he headed for the door.

Hurrying along the corridor, his concern about the mysterious emergency quickly changed to fear as he heard whimpering and crying coming from the ward. When he opened the doors, he saw something that made his heart plummet.

Many of the nurses were cowering against the wall, weeping with their hands over their heads, while several of the patients were whimpering in fear. But the thing that truly terrified him was the site of a tall, burly man holding Sahira by the neck, pressing a gun to the side of her head. Her brown eyes were wide with terror as her gaze flitted around the room, apparently looking for a possible escape route.

Greg Douglas was already trying to calm the gunman, but to no avail.

"Sir, please," he said. "Whatever it is you want, we can sort it out, but please don't bring Sahira in to this, just let her go and we can talk properly."

"You would like that wouldn't you?" Mr Peters said with a hysterical laugh. "You probably don't want your pretty little doctor to die. Well, guess what? You don't get to decide that. Someone is going to pay for killing my wife."

"Mr Peters, please..." Sahira choked.

"Shut up," he snapped, pressing the gun harder against her head. She didn't make a sound, just closed her eyes for a moment as if trying to calm herself.

Finally, Hanssen stepped in to the middle of the room, doing his best to look authoritative.

"Sir," he said, in his usual matter-of-fact tone, "Mr Peters, is it? Would you be so kind as to let my surgeon go?"

"Not until she's dead," he said with a manic glint in his eye.

The words made Hanssen feel sick with fear. Despite their separate opinions and agendas, Sahira was his longest friend, his best friend and he loved her. For fourteen years, eight months and two weeks of their fifteen year history, he had loved her.

The feisty F1 had been one of the first students he had ever genuinely cared for and he couldn't help falling for her the first time he watched her chase up blood results.

"_I'm sorry, but I don't care how busy you are," she had snapped down the phone. "You're going to have to prioritise here. How about you fast-track the bloods of the patients who are going to be dead first if you don't hurry up? Right. Thank you. No, I'll come and get the results myself; I can't be wasting any more time here."_

_With that, she had hung up the phone with perhaps a little more force than she had intended._

_When she turned to see him standing there watching her, she had flushed bright red, obviously expecting a scolding but Hanssen had said nothing. He just raised an eyebrow in quiet approval and strode off. For such a small person, she had so much passion._

And now she was standing before him with her life hanging in the balance. He could only see one possible option.

"Mr Peters," he said, stepping forward again, "I'm the director of surgery here. Any decisions about your wife or her surgery would have gone through me first."

"You?" he asked, with a sudden flicker of hesitancy in his eyes.

"This really has nothing to do with Miss Shah," he continued. Despite all his instincts screaming at him to turn and run, he focussed on keeping his usual calm and factual demeanour. "I am responsible for your wife's death."

"Henrik, no!" Sahira gasped.

He knew that neither he nor Sahira had been to blame for Janet Peters' death, but at that moment, it was the only opportunity he could see to get Sahira out of danger.

Ignoring Sahira's terrified gasp, Hanssen continued. "Now please may I have my doctor back?"

Without saying anything Mr Peters released his grip from Sahira. He still seemed unsure about what was going on, although it was clear he was still in a frenzied, uncontrollable rage. He turned slowly towards Hanssen, raising the gun to point at him now.

Sahira took a few shaky steps away from the frenetic gunman and Greg Douglas grabbed her by the hand to pull her further from danger. She appeared to be unable to do anything except stare expressionlessly ahead, in complete shock. Seeing the tears starting to run silently down her face, Greg put his arms around her, holding her tight. As if this brought her out of her trance, she turned to him and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder.

This was hardly the time to be feeling jealous, but he couldn't help the spark of envy he felt looking at Sahira seeking comfort from the smooth-talking Mr Douglas.

However, now he had got Sahira out of immediate danger, he had to start thinking about how to resolve the situation completely.

"You killed my wife?" Mr Peters asked, in a dangerously quiet voice.

"No, I did not kill your wife, but I was responsible for her care in this hospital."

"You were responsible for her and she died. That means you killed her."

"Mr Peters," Hanssen started, realising now that he had backed himself in to a corner and couldn't see how he could talk his way out of it.

"Shut up!" he yowled, brandishing the gun around. As he did so, a few of the nurses and patients screamed again.

"You are going to pay for killing my wife!"

The next few moments passed in a terrifying blur.

Hanssen was horrified to see Greg Douglas launching himself at the flailing gunman, but before he reached him, two gunshots cracked through the commotion and the entire ward fell silent.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Thank you so much for the reviews already! They quite literally make my day! I can't get this story out my head, so expect more chapters soon! **

**Please R&R!**

**Love you all already! **

Chapter 4

Henrik Hanssen stood staring in complete shock at the scene in front of him. For one thing, he had just, quite literally, dodged a bullet. For another thing, the cavalier and seemingly careless Mr Douglas had just saved his life.

Greg had tackled Mr Peters to the floor and was now on top of him, pinning him down. The gun, Hanssen was relieved to see, was now several feet away from the gunman's struggling hands.

With a jolt of concern, he noticed a steady dripping of blood coming from Greg's arm.

"Mr Douglas," Hanssen said, in his best 'in control' voice, "are you alright?"

"Fine, thanks," he said, grimacing. "He barely got me."

"Mr Hanssen!" a nurse shouted suddenly.

He turned around to see Sahira staring at him with wide eyes.

"Sahira," he gasped as he saw where the second gunshot had landed.

Sahira swayed where she stood as a stream of blood spread across her white shirt.

He ran over to her and caught her around the waist just as her eyes rolled back and her legs gave way beneath her. Kneeling on the floor, he held her small, limp body in his arms which were already becoming covered in her blood.

"Sahira?" he asked frantically. "Sahira, can you hear me?"

Her eyes flickered open but her expression was glassy and dazed.

"Everything is going to be fine," he promised, feeling a lump rise in his throat. "Get me a trolley over here," he yelled over his shoulder.

Glancing around, he called to one of the nurses,

"Someone get me something to try and stop this bleeding!" A couple of the nurses began hurrying to the supply cupboard, but before they had even reached it, a quick-thinking patient had stripped the pillowcase from his pillow and thrown it to Hanssen.

"Where's that trolley?" he demanded, impatiently, as he haphazardly tore Sahira's shirt open to get a better look at the bullet wound.

The bullet had hit her chest, just under her left shoulder. Hanssen groaned inwardly but did everything he could to keep his face neutral. Pressing the pillowcase to her chest he said, with a small smile,

"Well, that doesn't look too bad at all. I'll still be expecting those audits on my desk this evening."

But they knew each other too well. Hanssen knew she wasn't falling for his poor attempt at confidence.

At that moment, the double doors burst open and Jac Naylor came on the ward.

"What the hell is going on here?" she asked, astonished.

"Miss Naylor," Hanssen said, "prep theatre one for me, if you please. GSW to the chest."

Jac didn't say anything but took one slightly perplexed look at Greg with his bloody arm and Sahira lying barely conscious in Hanssen's arms and hurried out of the ward.

Just then, Hanssen heard the clinking of a trolley being wheeled up behind him by two nurses.

He lifted Sahira gently on to it, fighting back his growing panic when he saw the pillow case he had used was already soaked through with her blood.

"Don't worry about a thing, Miss Shah," he said matter-of-factly. Although he was trying to reassure himself as much as her, "you're going to be just fine."

She looked up at him and gave a weak, but definitely mischievous smile.

"Why Mr Hanssen, are you crying?"

"Of course not," he said sharply, blinking hard to try and rid his eyes of the tears that had been welling up.

"I know you won't let anything happen to me. I trust you."

Hanssen didn't know if it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn Sahira was getting paler by the second.

"Come on, let's move," he demanded. "Nurse, come here and keep pressure on this wound."

Just as they reached the ward doors, six armed policemen burst through. Two of them hurried forward and took over from Greg at holding Mr Peters down even though he had stopped struggling.

"Out of the way," Hanssen snapped as the trolley pushed through the mass of new arrivals.

As they rushed down the corridor, a nurse ran up behind them.

"Mr Hanssen," she asked.

"Yes?" he said, a little sharply.

"Miss Naylor just called Darwin, she wants to know who will be doing the operation. Should I page Mr Hope?"

"I hardly think that's necessary. I will be doing the operation."

"But Mr Hanssen, perhaps Mr Hope or Miss Naylor would be more suitable..." the nurse puffed, practically jogging to keep up with his long strides.

"because doctors aren't supposed to operate on family or-"

But Hanssen cut her off, his irritation building.

"Miss Shah is not a member of my family; therefore, I will be doing the operation."

"I know sir, but..."

"Enough!" he snapped, becoming thoroughly impatient. "I am doing this operation and that's final."

The nurse slowed her pace then, falling behind Hanssen. She looked a little startled, perhaps by her own boldness for suggesting that the director of surgery wasn't an appropriate surgeon for this case.

"Henrik," Sahira mumbled, reaching out and grabbing on to his hand which was clutching the side of the trolley.

"What is it?" he said, his breath catching in his throat.

"Henrik, you mustn't..." she said, gasping.

"I mustn't what?" he asked, wondering if she was going to tell him not to operate on her.

"If something happens," she continued, "you mustn't blame yourself."

"Nothing will happen to you," he said firmly.

She knew him very well. She knew as well as he did that if something were to happen to her on the operating table, Hanssen would feel personally responsible for the rest of his life.

"I won't _let _anything happen to you," he continued more gently. "I've told you before; I simply couldn't live without you... and I don't plan to try."

As they reached the anaesthetic room, Hanssen moved off in to the scrub room.

With a last long glance at Sahira, he smiled and said,

"See you on the ice."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Hey everyone, I promised the next chapter would be soon didn't I? **

**Thanks for all the reviews already, they mean a lot. I know this isn't a huge chapter but I just wanted to focus on this one scene for now.**

**Don't worry, there is still more to come. A longer chapter next time, I promise.**

**Next chapter is from Sahira's POV.**

**Lots of love, x**

Hanssen stood at the sink in the scrub room, his hands uncharacteristically shaky. In his twenty-five years of surgical experience, he had never been more terrified to start an operation. Maybe Jac Naylor was right, perhaps he shouldn't be doing this operation. It was true that he and Sahira had a long and complicated history... he tried to push his doubts out of his mind and concentrate on the task at hand.

"_I think it would be prudent_ _for you to stop engaging with your patients on such an emotional level... in cardiothoracics you can hardly afford to get emotionally attached to every patient you encounter." _

His own words echoed in his head. Such irony, he thought. It was impossible for this experience _not_ to be an emotional one. If this was how Sahira felt about every operation she performed, he had no idea how she managed to hold herself together.

Hands still shaking, he walked in to the operating theatre where a nurse pulled a pair of gloves on for him.

He almost couldn't bring himself to approach the table where Sahira was lying, now unconscious. The sight of her lying there with a ventilation tube coming from her mouth, looking so vulnerable made him feel slightly sick. It was as if every one of his nightmares had come true.

There were three nurses gathered around the table already. They were looking very shaken from the earlier events, but they were managing to hold themselves together, which was more than Hanssen could say for himself.

Forcing himself to move towards the table, he reached his trembling hand out to the left and said,

"Scalpel."

Two hours later, Hanssen retreated in to the scrub room, shaking worse than ever. Every single movement he had made in the operating theatre had felt like a terrible violation of Sahira. It was an effort to keep his usually carefully controlled emotions in check when he had to saw her sternum in half to get access to the bullet still lodged near her heart. Even just cutting her skin felt like a gross desecration.

He tore off his gloves and vomited violently in to the sink.

The entire day had been a terrible ordeal, culminating in the two hours of torture that he had just endured.

Leaning against the sink for support, he half wished that Mr Hope had done the operation. It would have saved him the torment of having to do it himself. He knew however, that while Sahira was in danger, he wouldn't have let anyone else go near her. They had worked to closely for so long that Hanssen had always felt incredibly protective of his fiery little protégée.

He began to wash his hands absent-mindedly. He felt as if he had surpassed all possible emotions and settled for a feeling of complete numbness.

He glanced out of the window and in to the corridor. He could see two blue signs on the wall;

**ALL WARDS MORGUE**

As he watched, a nurse and a porter wheeled the trolley out of the OR. Sahira was lying so still she could have been sleeping.

Just then, seeing her face, his numbness gave way to just one emotion;

_Relief._

He attempted to pull himself back up to his usual commanding stature and strode from the scrub room, following the trolley, and Sahira, back to Darwin.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N Here we are guys, chapter 6! Thanks for all the reviews so far.**

** Please continue to R&R so I know I'm still doing alright.**

**Chapter 7 will be up in the next couple of days.  
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**Much love, x**

* * *

><p>Chapter 6<p>

Hours later, Sahira awoke feelings slightly light-headed. She couldn't bring herself to move or open her eyes, so she just lay perfectly still. Now that she was awake, she was very aware of a dull aching in her chest. She groaned as she remembered why she was lying there. She had been shot straight in the chest. What a day.

Gathering all her strength, she lifted her head slightly and opened her eyes.

It took a moment or two for her eyes to adjust to the sunlight streaming through the window beside her. Looking around, she realised she was in one of the private rooms on Darwin. She would have liked to complain to someone that she didn't need any special treatment, but she just didn't have the energy.

She suddenly caught a glimpse of a tall silhouette against the window.

Her heart skipped a beat as more memories of her ordeal came flooding back to her. Still feeling sluggish from the anaesthetic, Sahira could only recall bits and pieces of what had happened earlier in the day but tried her best to put them together. She remembered Henrik standing in front of the gunman declaring that he was to blame for his wife's death; she remembered collapsing to the ground, lots of shouting and Henrik staring at her with terror in his eyes.

"Henrik?" she said hoarsely.

He had been standing with his back to the window, but on hearing her voice, he turned quickly around.

"Ah, Miss Shah, you're awake," he said matter-of-factly, approaching the bed. He seemed to be back to his old self, or was at least pretending to be. It had been a very surreal experience for Sahira to have seen him looking so afraid when he was usually the epitome of composure.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, looking at her with a worried expression, as though still expected something dreadful to happen to her.

"Terrible," she replied, making a feeble attempt at sitting up.

"Don't try and sit up just yet. You of all people should know better," he said with a small smile.

"It's very different being the patient and not the surgeon," she grumbled, flopping back down on to her pillow.

"Do you need any more pain relief?" Henrik asked, looking a little concerned.

_So he isn't quite back to his old self, _Sahira thought. _He's still fussing over me._

"No, I'm fine." As she looked her rescuer in the eye, the rest of the memories from earlier came flooding back.

"Oh Henrik," she said. "Why did you put yourself in danger like that? What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking of you," he replied simply.

"But what if things had been different? What if Mr Peters had shot you?" Even just thinking about it made her upset. If he had died saving her life, she would never have forgiven herself.

"That's beside the point," he said. "You have a husband and two small children. I'm sure no one would have missed me - "

"I would have missed you," Sahira cut in abruptly.

They looked at each other for several long moments, neither saying anything but the air seemed to crackle with unspoken emotions.

After what could have been several minutes, or just a few seconds, Henrik broke the silence.

"Speaking of your husband, would you like me to contact him for you?" As he said this, Sahira thought she saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Was it disappointment?

She shifted uncomfortably where she lay. For the past few months, in a desperate attempt to keep up her appearance as "super-mum", she hadn't been entirely truthful with her colleagues, including Henrik.

"Um..." she began. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

For three months she had kept this a secret. Perhaps now was the time to get everything out in the open.

"My husband and I have separated," she said abruptly. "We're actually in the middle of a divorce."

"I see," he said, giving nothing away. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that."

_No you're not, _Sahira thought to herself, dryly. Henrik had always considered her family life to be something of an inconvenient obstacle in the way of her surgical career.

"We haven't been living together since May," she continued, deciding that she might as well tell him everything now she had started. "He said he was sick of my constant working, so I told him that I was sick of coming home to his ungrateful face after a hard day at work, and that kind of... ended things."

Henrik now looked slightly amused.

"Has the separation made you happier?" he asked.

Sahira didn't really need to think about her answer.

"Yes."

"Well then, it was for the best."

Another silence.

This time, Sahira spoke first. Perhaps it was just the morphine, or the stress of the day, but she was starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

"How can I ever repay you for this?" she asked, her voice cracking. "You saved my life."

"You don't need to repay me," he replied. "Seeing you alive and well is payment enough."

She felt such incredible admiration for him at that moment, realising how difficult it must have been for him to watch her suffer. She knew that if the tables had been turned, she would have been beside herself with grief and worry. She reached out and took his hand which was grasping the side of the bed.

"Thank you," she said sincerely.

'Thank you' felt like such an understatement, but there weren't any other words to describe how indebted she felt towards him or how pleased she was that he had been there to look out for her.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Henrik drew back from the bed as Greg Douglas poked his head in to the small room.

"Ah, you're awake!" he said excitedly.

Henrik turned to her abruptly and said,

"I will come back to visit you later. I do have a hospital to run."

With that, he headed for the door, as though Greg's entrance had snapped him back to his old, detached self, or perhaps he didn't want Greg to suspect that they had been sharing an emotional moment_. _

_God forbid anyone should find out he has feelings, _she thought, smiling wryly to herself.

He nodded to Greg as he passed him, but said nothing else. Sahira felt like his exit had been very abrupt and couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. As much as she was pleased to see Greg, she was slightly taken-aback by her own reluctance to let Henrik leave the room.

The entire day's ordeal had made her see him in a whole new light. The strength of these new-found feelings for the formidable surgeon caught her off guard.

Never before had she felt so close to someone or felt so lost when they weren't near her.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N Here we go, next chapter. **

**Loving the Sahira/Hanssen scenes in Holby this week! It's what I've been waiting for for weeks. Can't wait to see what the next few episodes bring. **

**Meanwhile, on with the show!**

**Rebecca x**

* * *

><p>Chapter 7<p>

Greg practically bounced in to the room, completely unaware that he had just interrupted anything out of the ordinary.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, pulling up a chair from the corner so he could sit by her bed.

Sahira didn't answer straight away; she was still staring after Henrik who had just closed the door behind himself.

"I've had better days," she said, gloomily, her chest aching uncomfortably.

"You'll be back on your feet in no time!" he said reassuringly. "What a day, though!"

"This was all one big adventure for you wasn't it?" she asked, seeing his eyes lighting up with excitement.

"Well, you've got to admit it was pretty cool," he said, grinning.

"Speak for yourself!" she said. Greg laughed.

"Seriously though," he continued, "I'm glad you're okay."

"Thanks. What about you? Are you alright?" she asked, remembering that he had been hit too.

"Ah, there's nothing wrong with me, he barely got me!" he said, pulling up the sleeve of his scrubs to show her a huge white dressing wrapped around his arm.

"Barely got you?" she asked, disbelieving.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he insisted, "Dr Lyons from the E.D. patched me up in no time."

"What's happened to Mr Peters?" she asked, her mind wandering back to the middle-aged man who had shot her.

"He's been arrested. As far as I know they are charging him with attempted murder, actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm, so he's going to be locked up for quite some time."

"Poor guy," Sahira said, absent-mindedly.

"Poor guy?" Greg echoed incredulously. "He nearly killed you!"

"I know, but he must have been distraught, his wife had just died for God's sake. He probably wasn't in his right mind."

"You get way too attached to people, do you know that?" Greg said, shaking his head.

"I do know actually, Henrik tells me that several times a week," she said smiling.

"What was _that?"_ Greg said suddenly, with a huge grin on his face.

"What was what?" Sahira said, a little confused.

"You just smiled when you said Hanssen's name!"

"I did not," Sahira said defiantly, although she realised now that that was exactly what she had just done.

"Yes you did."

"Oh, just drop it will you?" Sahira said, getting slightly irritated. Greg was getting uncomfortably close to revealing her true feelings and she was starting to feel a little defensive.

They both fell silent for a minute. Much to Sahira's annoyance, Greg was sitting staring at her with a mischievous grin on his face, apparently very aware that he had touched a nerve.

"You should have _seen _him today, Sahira," he continued sounding a little in awe. "He was beside himself. No one has ever seen him like that before. Rumour has it that he actually made a nurse cry when she suggested they called Mr Hope in."

"I'm sure that's not true..." Sahira said, instinctively defending him, although she wouldn't have been surprised if Greg was telling the truth.

"You know, he didn't move from your bed until I came in, and you've been unconscious for about four hours." Greg lost his roguish smile and suddenly looked more serious.

"That man is completely devoted to you, you know."

"I'm beginning to notice that," she replied quietly, realising that, despite him only having been away for ten minutes, she was already missing Henrik.

* * *

><p>Henrik Hanssen left Darwin feeling dreadful. He had never felt more tired in his life. His excuse for leaving Sahira's bedside was that he had a hospital to run, but he had no intention of doing work. The entire day had been a huge physical and emotional drain and all he wanted to do was sit down in the quiet solitude of his office and do nothing for a few hours.<p>

As he strode along the corridor on the way to his office, many of the staff members turned to stare at him or muttered something to their co-workers as he passed.

_News certainly spreads fast, _he realised. There was clearly only one story on everyone's lips at the moment, and that was how a lot of the hospital staff, including himself, had been involved with the gunman on Darwin.

He was very glad when he reached the privacy of his office. He closed the heavy wooden doors behind himself and locked them. He didn't much feel like entertaining visitors at the moment.

He wandered over to his desk and flicked on his CD player as he passed. Debussy's _Reverie _began to play.

Just as he settled down in his soft, black leather chair he realised that being alone in his office was not what he wanted at all; he wanted to be back on Darwin with Sahira.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Just over a week had passed since Sahira had been shot, and she was finally beginning to feel better, aside from being incredibly bored.

She had had plenty of visitors, but none of them could stay very long. They all had to get back to their work and she envied them greatly. She had only been off her feet for eight days and she was already desperate to get back inside an operating theatre, preferably as the surgeon this time rather than the patient.

To add to her gloominess, she hadn't seen her sons since the accident. They had stayed with their father all week because she had refused to let them see her. The last thing she wanted was for them to see her confined to a hospital bed, but at the same time she missed them like crazy.

Henrik had been in to see her every day, but since the shooting he had had extraordinary amounts of paperwork and filing to complete, detailing every single feature of the traumatic event. On top of that, he also had to keep up with his surgeries. He could never stay for more than about half an hour at a time. Half an hour a day was not nearly long enough.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," she called, sitting up in her bed.

Much to her pleasure, it was Henrik who entered the room.

"Good afternoon, Miss Shah," he said, smiling fondly at her.

"Henrik, when can I go home?" she said exasperatedly.

"That is the very reason I came to see you," he said. "You can go home this evening."

"Thank God!" she said with relief. "How long before I can come back to work?" Since the day of the shooting, that had been one of the most pressing questions on her mind.

Henrik smiled sympathetically,

"It's going to be anywhere between four to six weeks, I'm afraid."

"Four to six weeks?" she echoed, her relief crumbling away to be replaced with complete dismay. "Can't I come back sooner and just work half days?" she said desperately.

"Perhaps," Henrik said, looking thoughtful. "How soon were you thinking?"

"Next week?"

He laughed.

"Make it four weeks and I'll consider it."

"But - "

"Miss Shah," he said, cutting across her, suddenly looking more serious. "You know as well as I do that coming back to a high stress job so soon after major thoracic surgery is nothing short of suicide."

"There must be something - " she pressed.

"No," he said, more sharply this time. Sahira felt a little taken aback, her determination to get back to work had obviously bothered him.

"Miss Shah," he said, more composedly now, his face giving nothing away, "eight days ago, saving your life was... well, it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. While you are my patient, you are my responsibility and I will not let any more harm come to you. If that means I have to keep you away from this hospital for a month, then so be it."

Sahira said nothing, she was touched by how much he cared for her, but was also exasperated by his stubbornness.

"I am doing this for your own good," he said, smiling, clearly noticing her frustration.

"I know," she sighed. "But four weeks is such a long time. I'm really going to miss..." She wasn't sure how to finish that sentence. She was going to miss everything about working in the hospital, but she was going to miss Henrik the most. Something stopped her admitting that though. Perhaps it was the awkward adolescent still within her. For a moment she felt like a teenager again, standing on her doorstep with a new boyfriend.

_Pull yourself together, Sahira, _she thought hastily.

"I'm really going to miss... this," she finished vaguely.

"I'm sure the time will fly by," he said encouragingly. "And you will get to spend plenty of time with your children."

"I love my children, Henrik," she said, "but I'm not in the best place right now to be confined to my house with two boisterous little boys jumping all over me."

"Perhaps not," he said.

It seemed to be a developing habit with them, as once again they lapsed in to a heavy silence, laden with unspoken thoughts and admissions. They simply gazed at each other.

Once again, they were interrupted by a knock on the door as a nurse walked in.

"Hi, Sahira," she said cheerfully. "I've brought all your valuables from the safe; I hear you're going home tonight."

"Yeah, thanks Claire," she said as the nurse sat a small plastic bag containing her jewellery beside her bed.

"Mr Hanssen." The nurse acknowledged him with a polite nod and left again.

"Well," Henrik said, "I will let you get organised. That is, if you are feeling ready to go home?"

For a moment she felt like saying she wasn't ready to go home, simply to win herself a few more days in the company of friends, but the desire to see her sons was too strong.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said.

"Good. Well, I really must be getting on."

"See you later," she said and once again watched him leave the room with an unexpected pang of sadness.

She sat for a few moments longer on the bed, staring at the door like a love-struck puppy.

"For God's sake," she muttered aloud to herself. "Get yourself together. You're being ridiculous."

She hopped stiffly off the bed, picked up her bag and set to work collecting her belongings which had somehow become scattered across the entire room. She tipped the bag of jewellery on to the bed and picked out her earrings. After she had shoved her bracelet and watch in to her bag, all that was left on the bed was her wedding ring. She had been wearing it as usual even after she and her husband had separated, but now Henrik knew the truth, it seemed silly to continue with the charade. She turned the ring a few times in her hand, deliberating. Finally, she threw the ring in to her bag, deciding that now was as good a time as any to move on.

An hour later, Sahira had collected everything and was ready to go home to her boys.

Picking her bag up with her right arm, she headed out to the nurses' station. After a short chat and a few quick goodbyes, she collected her discharge letter and prescription and started down the corridor to the lift.

As she reached the lift, Henrik came around the corner and stood beside her in front of the lift door.

"Going down?" he asked, clicking the 'down' button.

"Of course," she said, smiling.

With a loud ping, the lift arrived and the doors slid open. Several nurses walked out chattering amongst themselves.

She and Henrik walked in to the now empty lift.

"What floor?" she asked.

"Ground, please, I'm going to the Emergency Department."

"What a coincidence," she said light-heartedly, "I'm going to the ground floor as well."

The lift seemed to be going slower than usual. They stood closely side by side, neither saying anything, both watching the little screen above the door.

Fourth Floor... Third Floor... Second Floor...

_Four weeks, _she thought to herself. _Four long weeks without seeing Henrik, without doing surgeries together or bickering in the corridors._

As the screen switched to saying Second Floor, Sahira threw caution to the wind and turned to Henrik.

Stretching up on her tip-toes so that their faces were almost on a level, she did something that two weeks ago, she would never have expected to be doing.

She kissed him.

The doors slid open just as she moved away from him again and slipped out of the lift past a group of unsuspecting maintenance workers.

Looking a little dazed, Henrik called after her, still standing unmoving in the lift.

"What was that for?"

She turned back to look at him with an affectionate smile and said,

"Everything."


End file.
